


nothing more

by rogueseas



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: 5 Times, Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe, Established Relationship, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Kuroo Tetsurou is a Good Boyfriend, M/M, Self-Indulgent, Slice of Life, Some Plot, Tiny Angst, Tsukishima Kei is Figuring Things Out, Tsukishima Kei is a Good Boyfriend, is it tiny??? maybe, no betas we die like men, of a setting i'm not entirely sure where
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-04 02:53:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24876481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rogueseas/pseuds/rogueseas
Summary: Kei never lets things come easy for himself, never tries to believe in one thing too long because things change, all the time.But if we grow together and fall in love with one another's newer versions again and again and again,Tetsurou remembers saying one night as he held Kei in his arms, kissing the top of his head, the palm of his hands, the tip of his nose.Then we'll be alright, no?And there are many, many nights when Kei stillneedsto touch Tetsurou to make sure he's still there, when Kei has to fight himself to convince his head it's going to be okay.So, when he says heloves. If he,when he, could say he loved Tetsurou—no ifs, ands, or buts attached, then Tetsurou needs nothing else.or,The five times Kei tells Tetsurou he loves him (ft. some appreciation of the Tsukishima Brothers).
Relationships: Kuroo Tetsurou/Tsukishima Kei, Tsukishima Akiteru & Tsukishima Kei
Comments: 5
Kudos: 166





	nothing more

**Author's Note:**

> aka five times kei says "i love you" because he can. hMMMmmmM.
> 
> this was an impulsive fic i started writing about three hours ago. 30 days of krtsk started a few days ago but i'm not good at keeping up with those challenges and deadlines in general, then i found this prompt list i had saved in my gallery and thought i'll just offer this up into the wind instead.
> 
> this fic was made from five short prompts based on the random numbers moon picked from a tweet i made at around 5 pm today, hehe. ily, fellow moonchild!
> 
> i hope you enjoy!

i.

The first time Kei tells Tetsurou he loves him, it’s over a bottle of beer—admittedly, maybe one too many.

Tetsurou remembers observing Kei, with pale cheeks stained pink from the alcohol, carefree laughter bubbling out of his mouth in a way it never usually did, the way he leaned and reached out for Tetsurou because of a reason Kei did not disclose—perhaps he was making sure Tetsurou was there as he swayed, just a little out of control, to catch him or hold him or stay by him. Or maybe, _maybe_ , if Tetsurou could indulge himself, _maybe_ it’s because Kei just _wants_ him. Unbridled, unadulterated, and just as much as Tetsurou _wants_ —him.

Tetsurou remembers Kei leaning into him, as if he were about to tell a secret no one else must hear even if they were the only people in Tetsurou’s apartment.

"I love you.” He’d murmured, like it was that easy. And it was a little funny but all at the same time, incredibly, _overwhelmingly, inevitably_ something Tetsurou knows had just finalized the last stamp of the paper cementing the mere fact that this guy, _this man_ is someone Tetsurou will probably be loving for the rest of his life. 

Because Kei, _dear god, his sweetest, brightest moon,_ is the type of person who never lets things come easy for himself. Kei is always thinking, always considering each variable—and Tetsurou knows, believe him, that Kei has already tried to predict, or maybe even foreseen, the countless possible endings of all of _this_ before they could even try, has tortured himself with nights of imagining a life where he and Tetsurou would somehow, _somehow_ one day have to grow without one another. 

Kei never lets things come easy for himself, never tries to believe in one thing too long because things change, all the time. _But if we grow together and fall in love with one another’s newer versions again and again and again,_ Tetsurou remembers saying one night as he held Kei in his arms, kissing the top of his head, the palm of his hands, the tip of his nose. _Then we’ll be alright, no?_ And there are many, many nights when Kei still _needs_ to touch Tetsurou to make sure he’s still there, when Kei has to fight himself to convince his head it’s going to be okay.

So, when he says he _loves_. If he, _when_ _he_ , could say he loved Tetsurou—no ifs, ands, or buts attached, then Tetsurou needs nothing else.

ii.

The first time Kei tells Tetsurou he loves him _sober_ —it’s at his brother’s wedding.

By the time Kei had been called up on the stage to give his best man speech, Kei had been _tightly_ holding onto his hand for at least the half hour. Tetsurou had half the mind to come up there with him because of how it practically _aches_ to see him look like he’d lost his footing somewhere along the night (Tetsurou’s left hand is incredibly numb, as proof), but at the same time, remembers the conversations and this is the one thing Kei needed and _wanted_ to be able to do by himself.

("Why don’t you want to, Kei?” He remembers asking, after Kei had hung up on his brother who’d just told him he wants Kei to be his best man.

"Because.” Kei reasons, and he looks into Tetsurou’s eyes, as if that was enough for him to understand. And he thinks he does, but Kei is _wrong,_ so instead, Tetsurou blinks, "Because?”

"Because.” Kei insisted. 

Tetsurou remembers laughing softly, pulling Kei onto his lap, "Because you’re too awesome and the world might not be ready for you? Because you’re too beautiful that everyone might be blinded and steal you away from me? No offense to any of them,” he grins, holding Kei’s face in his hands, "but I'll fight even the gods if anyone tries to steal you away from me.”

Kei had hit his chest lightly, eyes shining in something that looks, _ah,_ like tears, "No.”

"So why?” Kei looks at him for a while, fingers fidgeting. Tetsurou waits.

“…haven’t been a good enough brother.” Kei replies quietly.

"Oh, sweetheart,” he remembers saying, hands cupping both of Kei's cheeks, "you could be a man-eating monster and Akiteru would still go to the ends of the world for you,” he remembers watching him worry his lips and how he'd pulled the younger just a little closer, "but you know what else is true? It’s that you would, too.”

Kei had looked at him then, and really _looked_ at him, eyes wide—almost as if everyone didn’t already know he would always have, how he never stopped loving his brother more than anyone else ever had.

"You could spend your whole life,” Tetsurou continues, tucking the longer strands of Kei’s hair behind his ears, "apologizing and hurting for the pain you both had to live through when you were younger, but you could also live your whole life just loving him freely, entirely, because he will always have his arms open to you, moonshine.”)

"For the longest time,” Kei began, "I always thought it was going to be just my brother and me against the world. I didn’t need anything else because he was everything I needed him to be, before I could have even considered needing anything. He took care of me when I was a baby—to the point his name was the first word I learned, the first person I'd walked towards when I first learned how to stand on my own feet, his old shoes were the first shoes I'd worn, all the things he loved, I loved, merely because it took me much, _much_ closer to him. He was my brother, but he was also my first friend, my babysitter, my stand-in dad, my childhood hero.”

"And then we grew up. And I realized that you’re not supposed to project your hopes on only one person. You’re not supposed to place them on a pedestal when you love them because they have to carry the burden of holding themselves up when all they want you to do is love them. By the time I realized that, my brother was already carrying so much weight from holding onto what I hoped was something he was that he was _hurting._ And remembered that throughout those years, I'd forgotten to tell him how much I loved him, no matter who he was or what he did. And we’d both forgotten the ease of just being with one another.”

By the middle of the speech, a lot of the audience were crying, Akiteru even more so—and he looked like he was a few seconds away from standing up to go to his brother, whose eyes were already shining with tears. Tetsurou refrains from climbing up on stage as well.

"But we’re so much older now, and Aki and I found a world where we don’t have to fight against the world alone. He has found the most beautiful love of his life and I, am genuinely grateful that you’re here to stand by him and be with him to grow old together. And I've found someone,” he sniffs, laughing softly, "someone who told me that even if I turn into a man-eating monster, my brother would still love me. So I stand here, in front of all of you today because there are people who continue to love me and push me forward when all I want to do is eat in a corner of the room,” he pauses and there is laughter, and Tetsurou thinks he sees Kei exhale and let himself breathe, “so, thank you, mom, dad, nii-chan, nee-san. And,” then he turns to look at Tetsurou.

“Tetsurou,” Kei looks at him for a few short seconds that feels a little bit like a lifetime—and Tetsurou knows, that there are always countless and countless of thoughts running inside Kei's head he could never quite articulate, so it always comes off in short, easily misunderstood sentences or he just never opens his mouth at all, neither does he try to explain himself. At this point, Kei has already talked long enough that he’ll probably want to hide the entire evening or go home right after—but then, _Tetsurou gapes_ , he breaks into the softest, gentlest smile and speaks, "I love you.”

Tetsurou never needed anything else.

Sure enough, right after he leaves the stage and Akiteru comes to hug him, he nearly begs his mother and brother if he could leave or sleep in the dressing room, whichever was allowed. 

(He ended up sleeping in the dressing room for an hour before going back out.

When they leave, Akiteru gives Tetsurou the biggest smile and the warmest hug.

"Thank you.” Akiteru said, as a means of goodbye, and then he’d gone. Tetsurou clutches and hauls a sleepy, stumbly Kei into the cab and they head back to the hotel they’d checked into for the wedding.)

iii.

Later, when they’re bathing in the tub in their hotel, Kei lulling forward, eyes blinking open and closing again every few seconds while Tetsurou sits behind him, rubbing shampoo on his hair. Kei begins with an "I love you”, turning his head to kiss Tetsurou on the apple of his right cheek, and ends with almost falling forward into the water as he finally falls asleep.

Tetsurou had laughed and laughed and laughed—and would have lamented the fact Kei was a light sleeper but he was deep asleep at that moment, in the tub, with shampoo in his hair—if not for the fact he couldn’t really just quite believe how much he loved him.

iv.

Contrary to popular belief based on first, second, until maybe seventh impression, Kei doesn’t always speak his mind. There are words that he utters, _actually_ means, and releases into the wind only once in a while, which makes them all the more important—and if Tetsurou had a say, all the more _sacred_. 

Like the words _see you later_ (because that meant he wants to again), _take care_ (because that meant he was going to worry over you), _come over_ (because that meant you were welcomed to a space he didn’t always disclose), _thank you_ (because that meant he understood you cared for him), _i love you_ (because that meant he—he loves you, plain and simple).

But the first time, the first time Tetsurou wishes they weren’t so sacred was after their first and biggest fight (they rarely ever did)—the one where Tetsurou had walked out the door and slammed it close, never looking back, the reminder of the way Kei had curled close against his back when he returned the same night, clutching on Tetsurou’s shirt with his dainty fingers, repeatedly murmuring, "I love you, I love you, I love you, _I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.”_

The way Tetsurou had given in so easily, turning to keep Kei close and the way Kei hid himself against the crook of Tetsurou’s neck, choking on a sob, _"I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.”_

("We’re okay, moonshine,” he’d said, clutching Kei close, "we’re okay.”)

v.

"So, you think,” Kei says, looking Tetsurou up and down, "just because this,” he continues, hands gesturing all over, “happened because you wanted to do something for me, that I should let it go.”

"Yes,” Tetsurou replies—who is currently standing on a kitchen floor dirtied with flour, sugar, and so many other things, his face smeared with the same material—grinning sheepishly. "Bokuto and Oikawa said it would be a great idea! They said you’d love it! Obviously, we hadn’t taken into account the fact I've never baked before…but Bokuto insisted since I was so good at chemistry, then!” He laughs, rubbing his nape sheepishly, as Kei raises an eyebrow, bemused (though Tetsurou could swear there’s a tiny, tiny smirk on his lover’s face).

Kei replies instead, patting away the flour stuck on one of the chairs as he sits on them, "So, what did you make exactly?”

Tetsurou brightens, taking out a cake box from the fridge, "It turns out I'm not that bad of a baker, and being a chemist works, because,” he pauses, placing the box in front of his lover and patting the kitchen counter for effects. On the other side of the counter, Kei was looking at him, one eyebrow raised still, although this time, a grin is about to bubble at the tip of his lips. Tetsurou merely smiles wider, before opening the box.

He watches as Kei's expression melts into that of utter fondness before he looks back up at Tetsurou, who’s watching with a hopeful gaze, "Well?”

A strawberry shortcake, looking exactly like the ones Kei always eats.

"I love you.” Kei says, sweetly, _lovingly, devotedly_ , moving towards him to kiss him briefly. And honestly, Tetsurou has never loved someone more (doubts he ever will).

Even when Kei walks away with the cake mere moments after.

"This is all mine now, thanks.”

**Author's Note:**

> for [more](https://archiveofourown.org/users/rogueseas/works?fandom_id=758208) haikyuu/krtsk fics!


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